1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to software fixes for software products, and more specifically, for managing software fixes in a computer system.
2. Description of the Related Art
As computers have become ubiquitous, so has the software that is needed to run them. Further, the pace of additions, modifications, and changes to software has quickened dramatically. Until recently, a new release of a software product was generated about two or three years after the previous release. Today, a new release may be generated in less than a year from the previous release. Furthermore, because of the complexity of software, as soon as the software product is released, errors (commonly called “bugs”) are found. These errors are generally attended to immediately by the software product's programmers, who find a “fix” or “patch” for the program. These fixes or patches are usually distributed to registered owners of the software product, or placed on an Internet website where the software product owner can download the fix.
Each software product has its own set of fixes. Thus, if a system has multiple software products, the system will require multiple sets of fixes. The registered owner or a system administrator, therefore, is required to download each individual fix for each software product one at a time, which can be time-consuming and tedious.
Moreover, multiple sets of fixes can be organized into a group of fixes that generally represents a specific maintenance level or functional level. The groups of fixes are routinely provided today as the mechanism for delivering the maintenance levels in fix releases of the software product or in service packs. The problem with the current mechanism, however, is that the production of fix releases and service packs require rebuilding, reverifying, re-releasing and reinstalling the entire product or service pack. Also, it is difficult to transmit the maintenance level or functional level implemented as a fix release or service pack without transmitting the entire implementation. As a result, all fixes in the service pack are sent to every target system as one bundle regardless of whether the target system needs all of the fixes.
Furthermore, if the owner or the system administrator desires to determine the status of each fix in the system, they would have to search for and determine each fix individually, which makes a simple determination of a status for set of fixes for multiple software products a tedious and long process.
A need therefore exists for a method and apparatus for managing software fixes in computer systems.